I've been doing some research on Induct, a company that claims to be the first to have a fully-autonomous vehicle available for commercial sale, and while researching I think I found an achievement much more potent than that: they managed to make an electric car demo video feel like a filthy porno.

It's not that the car is actually sexy, or anything, though I do rather like the geeky little-van look of the car, which they call the M.I.L. The initials "M.I.L." stand for the three companies (Muses, Induct, LIVIC), and the company does seem to have a flair for inappropriate-sounding acronyms. For example, part of their autonomous technology is called SLAM, for Simultaneous Location And Mapping. You'd think most people would want to avoid words like SLAM when thinking about self-driving cars.

What makes the M.I.L. vehicle so unique is its ability to self-construct a sort of road-train as needed. The van can find similar vehicles and, using a special docking probe and socket system, connect multiple other little vans to form a train, and then the lead M.I.L. can drag that train wherever it needs to go, which could be useful for transferring fleets of vehicles, cargo, or both. Not a bad idea at all.

But it's in the video showing this where it gets weird. In an attempt to hide proprietary information, I guess, the probe and socket system are pixellated out. Which just makes the whole procedure seem so very, very dirty. Here, look:

Maybe it's the music, too.

Oh yeah. Hot van-on-van action. Look at that glistening probe expanding out there, and making firm, tight contact with that receiver — imagine how hot this would be if it wasn't pixellated! I'd get nothing done!

Seriously, that pixelation really made me feel like I wasn't sure I should be watching this. Is it wrong I'm having complicated feelings? Or that I made this GIF?